The offshore mooring system market is expected to show a decent growth rate over the forecast timeframe due to some rise in offshore oil & gas exploration and production activities. Movement of oil prices in positive direction after 2014 has encouraged investment in offshore sector of oil & gas industry, which in turn is affecting product market in positive manner. The offshore mooring system are used for providing permanent or temporary berthing to a wide range of structures such as oil & gas production/drilling units, floating dry docks, tankers (during oil transfer operations), etc. Commercialization of various floating solar and wind farms have given a further to the demand for mooring systems for installation, operation and maintenance.

Offshore mooring systems majorly relies on the strength of anchors. The different types of anchors used in such systems are drag embedment, vertical load, suction anchors and others. The other anchoring systems include driven pile anchors, etc. Among these, drag embedded anchors are majorly used for Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU), Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) platforms, semi-submersibles platforms which are majorly located in shallow and deep waters. For ultra-deep-water applications suction anchors are used with semi-taut and taut mooring systems.

Advent of shale oil & gas in North America and growth of NGLs (Natural Gas Liquids) along with decreasing profitability of upstream companies due to low crude oil prices in past years have resulted in reduction of offshore activities. These are the factors that will hinder the growth of product market in near future.

There are different types of offshore mooring systems that are widely used across the globe among which major ones are catenary, spread mooring, taut leg, semi-taut, dynamic positioning and single point mooring. The catenary mooring systems are majorly used for shallow waters, while semi- taut are used for deep water applications. Besides these, spread mooring systems are most common as they can be used with any size of vessel, for all water depths and has a long service life. Single point mooring systems find their applications majorly for Floating Liquified Natural Gas (FLNG) ships, FPSO platforms and other service vehicles thus making it of the most versatile mooring system for oil & gas industry.

Various applications of offshore mooring systems are for MODUs, semi-submersible, FPSO, SPAR, tension lag platforms, and others. The others segment includes FLNG and FDPSO vessels. Volatility in crude oil prices have limited the investment in development of new vessels that can be used for offshore drilling, storage and other operations, which is affecting the market negatively.

Asia Pacific is expected to hold the major share in the offshore mooring market due to increasing exploration activities in South China sea. Countries such as Vietnam, China and Australia are leading FPSO markets and the demand for offshore mooring system is expected to remain high. Countries such as India are taking steps to become gas-based economy and they are investing largely on FLNG and LNG projects. For instance, the first floating LNG terminal in India was inaugurated at Jaigarh in May 2018, and the FSRU hired for this job is ENI’s GDF SUEZ Cape Ann.

This indicates that the demand for offshore mooring systems will escalate in developing nations like India. However, Europe is one of the prominent markets for such systems as the investment in offshore renewable farms and subsea exploration is expected to rise over forecast time period. Major oil & gas companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and BP are investing in Middle East to develop their deep sea and shallow reserves for drilling and exploration activities. This will altogether catapult the demand for offshore mooring systems in coming years.

About The Author

Fortified with a post-graduate degree in Computer Applications, Rahul Sankrityan writes for Express-Journal, where he pens down news and articles spanning across segments of technology industry that excite him on a day-to-day basis. Rahul comes with a rich experience in technical field as well as writing.